Hi everyone!

I am looking to upgrade my laptop (for work and online college). Thus, I want to make sure that I buy a good laptop and that I have the best setup possible. Here are the current specs I am looking at:

HP Laptop 17z-cp300, 17.3"

  • Windows 11 Home
  • AMD Ryzen™ 5 7530U (up to 4.5 GHz, 16 MB L3 cache, 6 cores, 12 threads) + AMD Radeon™ Graphics
  • 17.3" diagonal, FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, anti-glare, 250 nits
  • 3-cell, 41 Wh Lithium-ion prismatic Battery
  • Full-size island-style jet black keyboard with numeric keypad
  • HP True Vision 720p HD camera with temporal noise reduction and integrated dual array digital microphones
  • Realtek Wi-Fi 6 (1x1) and Bluetooth® 5.3 wireless card

I want a good amount of RAM, but I could use some advice (my current laptop has 12 GB):

12 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB, 1 x 8 GB) + $30.00 16 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB) + $70.00

I want 1 TB of storage, but I am not sure which option is the best one:

1 TB 5400 rpm SATA HDD; 128 GB PCIe® SSD + $70.00 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA; 256 GB M.2  SSD + $80.00
1 TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD + $140.00 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA; 512 GB M.2  SSD + $160.00

I also want to know what the best option is for Network Connectivity:

Realtek Wi-Fi 6 (1x1) and Bluetooth® 5.3 wireless card Included In Price MediaTek Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ MT7921 (2x2) and Bluetooth® 5.2 combo**+ $20.00**

This is the laptop: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345620699825&urlLangId=&quantity=1&color=jet%20black

I appreciate any advice you can offer.

  • tymophy76@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    RAM - go with 16GB. Not only is 16GB just better, but it’s ALSO all going to be dual-channel, which means there will be some (extremely minor) performance improvements going from 12GB to 16GB.

    Storage - The 1 TB NVMe would be the simplest and fastest choice. Even for storage on laptops, hard drives aren’t (IMO) ideal anymore. If an option, I’d rather get like the 512GB NVMe and then buy a 1TB SATA SSD for storage. WAY faster, less heat, and no moving parts in it to die if you drop the laptop a couple inches.

    Neither network choice is ideal. Realtek has garbage performance. MediaTek 7921 works well, but lacks some features (160 MHz channels) that mean that it has max performance only 1/2 that of most other Wifi6 adapters. Of course, being able to use that features is dependent upon having a setup that supports it to connect to. Overall, just the poor performance of the Realtek would make me go MediaTek, and if it’s slotted, I’d probably put either a 7922/RZ616 to replace it, AX210, or QCNFA765 depending on prices I found for each.